


The Life and Death of Dr. Thaddeus Venture

by danvssomethingorother



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Grieving, M/M, Temporary Character Death, request fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-03 08:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16322582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danvssomethingorother/pseuds/danvssomethingorother
Summary: All it took was Brock not taking one threat too seriously for him to lose Rusty forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last of my Brusty prompts: 
> 
> Alright, here's a Brusty prompt for you. Through this season, we got to see Brock not particularly concerned about Doc's wellbeing. I can't blame it, Doc gets kidnapped every other day and it's usually Guild related, so he knows Doc's going to be alright. So the prompt is the opposite. What IF Doc's in genuine danger, and Brock goes from believing everything is in order to realizing Doc is probably going to die if he doesn't get there in time?

Brock had never been openly affectionate, especially not towards him. Never towards Doc.

On occasion he would comfort or console the boys, show them a sliver of attention their father hadn’t been capable of giving them since their fifth death, but never had he shown Doc that. Never when people were watching. He always kept his composure and reminded himself it was just a job, the nights they spent together meant nothing, he told himself that so often he almost believed those lies. Almost thought he could shrug off an event like this as he had taken to doing for the boys, who he almost considered his own. His and Rusty’s children, he had gotten so desensitized to their deaths, he could just grumble a curse, clean up the mess, and start the next day like it hadn’t happened.

This, this was so much different. Brock didn’t know how to process he had lost Doc, he just held his lifeless body, mumbling his name into his ear. No matter what he addressed him as, the man was not responding, he was not breathing, his heart had stopped long before Brock had gotten here and no matter what Brock did, it wasn’t going to start again.

He could call him Doc, Rusty, Rust, Thaddeus or even TS, something no one would have ever called him, but he wasn’t going to respond.

The man had always complained behind closed doors that he wanted Brock to act like he loved him when other people were around but even with his friends and sons awkwardly watching Brock hold the man’s corpse and even shed tears as he kissed him on the forehead, he wasn’t going to come back to him.

Doctor Thaddeus S. ‘Rusty’ Venture was dead and there was nothing that would change that.

\---

Most would assume Thaddeus S. Venture’s funeral would have been a quiet affair, he was not the most liked person around, but it was no real surprise to Brock the entire Guild was on outside the funeral home demanding to see this man’s corpse, not believing he could die.

The older members of the Guild in particular weren’t buying it that he had died or that it was possible for him to do so.

Even The Monarch, who had been there when Brock had brought Doc’s body from the wreckage, would not believe the man was gone. He had left half a dozen messages to their home phone and a dozen more to the new CEO of the company demanding for Rusty to stop faking his death.

Brock wasn’t allowed to mourn in peace, to keep the proceedings some what quiet for the few people who truly did love Rusty Venture, he had to keep the peace outside.

He twisted his wrist a little, letting his drawn knife glint in the sun light as a warning to all the snarling and fully costumed members of the Guild surrounding him.

“I arched Jonas Venture from 1960 to 1986!” 

Brock just glared at Dr. Z standing in front of him with a finger close enough to his face almost asking Brock to slice it off. 

“In the entire time I arched that man, that little boy was practically immortal! One of my henchmen shot him in the freaking head. Blood and brains splashed everywhere. The stain never came up and I thought it would be a reminder to anyone dumb enough to bring their damn six-year-old baby into war zones but the next week Jonas had his baby with him on TV! You explain how that happened, but one explosion can kill him??”

Brock could explain exactly how that happened, he had known the Venture family’s little secret for over twenty years but that was long gone. Even if it was an option, it wouldn’t bring Rusty back. If it was still an option, Brock would have already taken it. He would already be back home, already have Rusty back, this entire funeral would not be necessary but as it stood that was no longer an option. 

Brock rolled his eyes and shrugged at the old man, acting like he had no idea what he was talking about.

“This is some fucking bull shit!” Monarch yelled shoving Dr. Z aside and earning one of the man’s famous death glares, “I have arched this family for god damn 20 years! I know you have your ways of bringing back the dead. Does Rusty really think he can escape me faking his death and sneaking out the back door??! That isn’t how this fucking works!”

“Sweetie…” his wife began placing her hand on his shoulder, but he wasn’t done making a scene, he stomped his foot and made Brock snarl as he got into one of his poses, this is exactly what Brock wanted today, to listen to an evil monologue.

“This is god damn disrespect on his part! He did this on purpose! He ruins my big ceremony by lying about us being related! And now he’s faking his death so I can’t arch him anymore after the level of bullshit I went through to get this far!!” 

“Yeah! They have cloning and a freaking necromancer!”

Brock took a deep breath to keep the urge from killing the henchmen now yelling at him, he was on hollowed grounds, they couldn’t harm him and he sadly couldn’t harm them during a funeral proceeding. That was agreed upon on the Treaty of ’75 and hadn’t been changed since. 

“You all saw the corpse…” Brock sighed pinching the bridge of his nose, “Monarch was the witness to this since he was the first there, do we have to do this now?”

“This isn’t what we are here for,” Monarch’s wife said with a deep sigh gently pushing back her husband and his henchmen sending a glare towards Dr. Z as he opened his mouth again, “We have been trying to get ahold of you for days. After a level ten passes, their level is always transferred over to their---”

“You send an arch for the boys so soon after their father’s passing, and I will make sure I send the corpse right back to you.”

“Not so soon of course but you are refusing to answer, and you represent the boys,” she said raising her hands up to keep the peace between everyone, “I would rather not go directly to your superior officers on this, you know what’s best and we need to handle and take care of this. Nothing personal, but this is the only place we could confront you without risk of personal safety.” 

“After Jonas’s death, his uncles agreed Rusty needed some responsibility and six months later he was assigned his first arch,” Dr. Z began but Brock was already shaking his head. Rusty was on drugs after his father’s passing and it wasn’t right of the original team Venture to toss him into the lion’s den so soon and Brock wasn’t about to toss his boys in directly after their father’s passing. 

“But I know damn well Dr. Venture is not dead!” Dr. Z concluded with a firm shake of his head, “Do you know the amount of shit that should have killed him as a child? I refuse to believe an amateur newbie you refused to take care could do what pros could not.”

“Z,” the council woman sighed out loudly, “For the last damn time, that is not why we are here…”

“No that is exactly why we are here!” Monarch yelled out pointing his finger towards himself and towards his henchman.

“This is a god damn ploy! Some fucking ruse you and Dr. Venture cooked up just to fuck me over more! You want me to fucking believe you just let him be kidnapped?? You just let some fucking piece of shit nobody kill him??” 

Brock kept a straight face, he kept every feature impassive, passing off he didn’t care but inside, he was screaming. He let Rusty, his Rusty leave that night after getting a death threat. He shrugged it off, it was a disgruntled level three no one.

It had ended here, Brock standing outside Doc’s funeral being yelled at by his arches that he was lying.

“Do you know how many henchmen this man has slaughtered for just looking at the Venture family wrong?” his henchman cut in making his leader throw his arms up and scream ‘exactly’ loud enough to make Brock cringe at the shrill cry.

“Believe what you want,” Brock snarled their way, “Dr. Venture is dead. He’s not coming back and if you come near the boys before they register as protagonists on their own volition I will fucking kill you.”

Brock was done with their third degree, he walked into the funeral home and slammed the door behind him. He rolled his eyes at Shoreleave as he approached him and cocked his head towards the door silently telling him to deal with the Guild members still outside, waiting to bitch some more at him about how he was lying about this.

Shoreleave sympathetically patted him on the shoulder as he walked down the hall, ducking into the funeral room in time to see Dean crying at the podium, telling a story about the one time he had truly related to his father. He was leaving out key details, but Brock knew he was talking about how they were both clones.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

Time passed, maybe things got better, they hadn’t gotten worse in any case. JJ’s company was running better without Rusty here to drag it down, it had been promised to Hank and Dean if they wanted it but neither had stepped to the plate. Brock didn’t force them, forcing Rusty into Jonas’s shoes right after his death just made a nineteen-year-old man who already had mental problems worse driving him to bad addiction after bad addiction and having children before he was ready to take care of them. 

The captain seemed to have it covered, he had been taking care of it even when Rusty was alive, so it was no real surprise he had it now.

Pete and Billy still haunted the lab, trying to finish up projects Rusty had been working on before his untimely demise. Brock often caught them just staring at the stair way, waiting for Rusty to arrive late as usual, but their hopeful looks at Brock’s decent down the stairs always turned into frowns and sighs before they went back to work seeing Brock standing there. 

Dean continued to study science despite the fact he could study anything he wanted now with his father gone. Brock had told him more then once he could study whatever he wanted, it didn’t matter but Dean was dead set on keeping up his science major. 

Brock just shrugged, if that was what Dean wanted, he didn’t really care. 

Hank some days acted like the most adjusted out of all of them, going on as if his father was still alive and doing his own thing as he had always done. Brock didn’t miss the way he paused outside his father’s bedroom door every morning almost listening for him to curse at JJ’s wake up call like normal or the way he snuck in the lab somedays just staring at the inventions his father wouldn’t finish and Pete and Billy were working as slowly as possible on getting done.

Brock himself just went on as he always had, kept to his normal routines. Shooing away a drunk Monarch every time he found him waiting for Doc to come out of hiding, always yelling he knew he was alive but the sadness in his eyes told Brock some part of him knew the man was gone.

He asked to be assigned to protect his family as long as he could even without Rusty here and Hunter had given him a stern glare but complied to his wishes. 

A month passed and then six then a year, very little changing even if there was a large place that Doc had once vacated in all of their lives and without him everything just felt wrong. 

Standing outside during a down pour on the year anniversary of the man’s passing, Brock realized he could smoke inside now, there was no shrill bean pole to march him back outside for lighting up on the couch now. 

That would break the illusion they all had set up that Rusty was just being petty and refusing to speak to them though. It was easier to swallow that he had finally successfully run away from this life as he often talked about rather then accepting he was really dead.

“Hey Brock,” Brock just side eyed Hank as he leaned over the ledge next to him and grunted at him to let him know he was listening.

“Do you wanna … come with me to see Dad today?”

He was nervous scratching his head, breathing picking up a little knowing Brock was about to deny him his request.

“I have something I need to take care of today,” he lied easily, just staring down at the sea of popped up umbrellas and head lights inching bellow them.

If this were one of the movies Brock and Hank usually watched together, Brock’s lie wouldn’t be completely untrue. He would be suiting up to go kill the man who had stolen the life of the person he had once loved. A big action blow-out, lots of dead henchmen and explosions and Brock visiting the grave before it cut to the closing credits.

The truth was, Brock was just going to finish his cigarette and he had every intention of getting black out drunk watching those god-awful movies he used to watch with Rusty. Maybe after he woke up in his own vomit and bad decisions chase off the monarch who would be waiting for him on this day, smug over confident smile and the lies he told himself about how Dr. Venture was just fucking with him and he was going to be here on the year anniversary because Rusty never stuck to anything that long. 

“Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself isn’t what my dad would have wanted,” Hank mumbled angrily pulling himself up, but Brock just cracked a sad smile.

“That is exactly what yer dad would have wanted.”

“Well I don’t know, do the opposite of what he would have wanted then!” Hank mumbled before slamming the door behind him as he re entered the penthouse. 

Brock went back to his cigarette, he didn’t even know why he was still hanging around the Venture’s home. He could be doing something more important then this, more exciting then this but he didn’t want to chance being too far from home in case something did happen to the boys. The Guild wouldn’t stay calm about his decision for long, the boys needed someone more competent then Hatred around to keep them safe.

He thought of Rusty’s still corpse, how banged up it was from all the rumble crushing him and knew that was a damn lie.

\---

“I’m leaving.”

Brock didn’t even look up from the TV just waved his hand up towards the man and he smirked feeling that nasty glare squaring him down.

“Shouldn’t my body guard be a little more concerned then this?”

Brock just grunted taking another long drink of his beer, not looking up from the movie he was watching, he wasn’t that invested in it, but he wasn’t invested at all in the idea of listening to the man behind him complain some more, so his attention stayed on the cars smashing into each other.

He felt slender fingers briefly ghost against his own before yanking the beer out of his lax grip making him roll his eyes.

“What do you want me to say, Doc?”

“I want my body guard to give a shit someone is sending me death threats!”

“A single death threat,” Brock grumbled out with a firm shake of his head, “It barely even counts. Just go, go do the thing you have to do to get your company out of the red and come home. It will be fine.”

Rusty, the bitter man he was, dumped the rest of the can of beer on top of Brock’s head and dropped the half crushed can on his body guard’s lap. Before Brock could react, Rusty was storming out the door, mumbling curses, never to be seen alive by anyone again.

\---

Brock jolted awake feeling someone shaking his arm, Dean jumped out of the way of his body guard’s fist by sheer dumb luck alone.

“Jesus, Dean…” he groaned pulling himself and glaring at the college student sheepishly smiling at him, “You know better then to sneak up on me like that.”

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled the fake smile finally falling, Dean was refusing to even look at Brock, “But Dr. Orpheus is here and he was standing outside for a long time, I think he wants to talk to you.”

Brock was already feeling the consequences of his bad decisions today and groaned loudly fully intending to tell Dean to tell Orpheus to go away but he knew it would do no good, Orpheus was already here.

He could hear him already banging around in the kitchen and knew he would be out in a minute offering him tea, so it was best to just get this over with.

Dean nervously glanced from the kitchen then back towards Brock before leaving Brock alone on the couch, nearly tripping over the mess of empty bottles Brock had thrown around earlier in his haste to get away from Brock who probably didn’t look the best right now. Rusty always had bad taste in liquor but he had enough stashed away for Brock to get drunk every day for a life time if he chose to.

Brock was rubbing his temples trying to get rid of his newly formed headache when Orpheus came back setting a cup of tea in front of him.

“It should help with the hangover.”

Brock just nodded taking his word for it but didn’t move to take the cup.

“This may be a bit brash of me considering the day,” Orpheus began pausing for Brock to say anything but when he didn’t, he continued on.

“But I was wondering if you were maybe cloning Dr. Venture,” he set his accusatory eyes on Brock and Brock didn’t answer feeling his blood beginning to boil.

“No,” he said firmly, “That is impossible.”

“Are you certain?”

“I’m positive.”

“That is peculiar,” Dr. Orpheus began setting his tea down and stroking his beard in thought, always the dramatic. Brock found himself rolling his eyes already done with this. So what if he couldn’t contact Rusty from hell? That didn’t automatically mean someone had cloned the man, he didn’t know who would to begin with. 

“Usually on the anniversary of the deceased,” he began rising from his spot and beginning his pace in front of them. Dean looked nervously at the scene as he re entered the room, briefly making eye contact with Brock who shrugged and shook his head.

“I feel them the strongest near their eternal place of rest but when I entered the cemetery, I knew something to be off. I could not feel his presence, could not feel him calling towards the living on this day as most souls do.”

“Doc always was the antisocial type,” Brock shrugged, “Maybe he found something better to do.”

“No matter the personality type, most leave a piece of themselves behind and the only time I have seen anything similar to this was with the boys.”

He accusing eyes were boring into Brock now and even Dean was looking at him a little suspiciously, but Brock had enough.

He didn’t bother answering any of them, he just rose from the couch and headed to his bedroom. Something felt off about all of this. 

On his nightstand the old framed family photograph, he picked it up and just stared at Rusty’s annoyed expression. He sank on the mattress and just stared at the man’s face, wondering if maybe he was out there somewhere.

He always imagined him haunting the living after he died, he hoped that was the case, if someone did attempt to clone him to bring him back, he wasn’t going to be the same person.


End file.
